by Lizzy Ford
“Why are you stopping?” Henli demanded, using his full weight to push against the stones.
She waited, eyes on the wall.
“Do not move!” someone shouted at them.
The wall began to tremble, and a distant roar sounded from behind the stone. Dust rained down upon them while water squeezed between the stones.
Sela coughed and stepped back.
“Mage …” Henli sounded ready to run.
Not about to let him hurt Tieran again, she held out her hand. “I am the only one who can protect you!” she told him. “Take my hand and pray!”
He eyed her then glanced at the wall.
Water sprayed them, eating away at the mortar holding the stones in place. Salt water, she realized, licking her lips. She coaxed the water towards her. The wild, frenzied energy of the ocean responded eagerly. She started to laugh. The Inlands that contained no water had a direct connection to the sea!
“This is not the time for madness, mage,” Henli said tersely. “Do you mean to drown us?”
Already, the water reached her calves. Lord Qinlin’s men began to retreat.
“I mean to free us,” she responded.
Gushing water eroded the stones around the edges, pouring into the lower chamber of the catacombs.
Sela released the bones in her arms and closed her eyes, filled with the raw, cold power of the ocean. She willed the water to spare the bones of Tieran’s ancestors as well as her unwanted companion.
Henli pulled away from her, alarmed by the water that reached his chest.
“It won’t hurt you,” she said and tightened her grip. “Don’t let go of me.”
The water magic swirled around her, through her, speaking to her without words.
The Sorcerer had been right about the two islands colliding – but wrong about the channel. The sea was not trapped between the landmasses, and not flowing through a channel.
This was not the shallower Emerald Bay or the Ruby Channel she had crossed with Karav. This was the ocean, deep and dark and ancient. The bottomless depths she had sensed at the edge of the Emerald Bay also ran directly beneath the fault. Her breathing quickened, and the same fear she experienced in the Bay returned.
The water submerged her and the noble clutching her hand. A look towards him revealed the protective bubble keeping him from drowning. She sucked in water, loving its salty flavor and the story each drop wanted to tell her.
Any question she had about why Tieran’s water mage ancestors settled here vanished. Like her, they would have been drawn to this place without knowing why.
The water whipped them past the wall, pulling them down into its depths protectively. Sela reveled in the sensation, the power, the magic. She recalled swimming in the Bay while Tieran watched, kissing him beneath the waves, marveling at the strength of his frame when he held her.
She also remembered how he had shut her out after.
The water mourned with her, more so when it learned his current fate.
She focused on returning to the surface, on saving her savage.
The sea, however, had different plans.
It pulled her deep into its depths, into the place she had been afraid to go. Past the shelves and corals, past the reach of light, past the point where any creature could survive, deep into a trench as ancient as the ocean’s magic.
Panic bubbled up within her. The ocean felt as if it were crushing her from every direction. It wanted what she did not know was possible: to scatter her physical form and become her. The intimacy of the demand scared her. Never in her life, even when she yielded to Karav’s and Tieran’s strength and decisions, had they possessed her.
Sela breathed in the depths. Instead of speaking back and forth with the water, her thoughts became one with it, merging at a level where she could no longer tell which thought was hers and which was the ocean’s.
It was then the ocean revealed its greatest secret. She was not a woman gifted with the ability to speak to the seas.
She was the ocean, in the form of a woman. The ocean was alive, filled with fluid emotion, while she possessed the logic of a human. Combined, they were more powerful than any other element or magic in the realm.
Sela released the hold over herself preventing her from complete surrender. Her body could not hold the power of the entire ocean, unless she acknowledged they were one and the same. As she freed her mind, she became aware of all the ocean knew, the history spanning tens of thousands seasons, the movements of every current, the name of every sea creature. The ocean was the original magic, the first element created.
Once, long ago, the two islands had merged, as the Sorcerer told her. The fault between them, where the two land masses met, ran from north to south. The land was thinner along the fault – two beaches and shallows that had collided – and the ocean closer to the surface. The fault was vulnerable not to rivers or lakes or the erosion of time, or to any force men could muster.
It was vulnerable solely to her, the ocean. To possess her power, to yield her magic and shed the helplessness plaguing her, she needed to break the seal between the two islands. Only then could she save her savage.
Sela became aware of both her body and the consciousness of the ocean. She sailed upward through the depths, renewed by the soul-deep revelation of where her true power originated. Karav had feared sending her to the ocean, perhaps because he knew she would not be able to survive it without a stronger warrior.
The sea swept her back through the catacombs and upward towards the surface. She and the noble traveled with the column of water surging out of the catacombs. She coughed and stumbled at its sudden release, landing hard on her knees as water pooled around her.
I am the ocean. The ocean is me, she said to herself. The idea was overwhelming and left her dazed with surprise.
“We must have gone to the bottom of the seas!” the noble exclaimed, splashing into the mud beside her. “I never want to do that again.”
“Then you shouldn’t have cornered a water mage!” she snapped. “You should be grateful you lived through it. No other man in history has gone so deep and survived.”
A horse neighing drew both of their attentions. Henli scrambled to his feet, yanking her up with him.
“You can let me go now,” she objected.
He ignored her, and both looked towards the crescent of soldiers on horseback surrounding the hill in front of them. They bore Lord Qinlin’s sigil on their chests.
Sela glanced over her shoulder. The ocean water continued to shoot upward and out, its power thrumming through her body.
She felt it bubbling beneath the fault upon which she stood. Sela released a deep breath. The ocean hummed through her, following her thoughts and predicting her actions before she made them.
She knelt and placed a hand on the ground.
The noble went with her, refusing to release her after their journey into the ocean’s depths.
“Come to me,” she urged the water. She felt it respond, bubbling up beneath the fault, pushing at it, seeking one small crack within the land.
“Arrows,” Henli warned.
Sela ignored him and the warriors preparing to charge. Instead, she coaxed the ocean upwards, towards her.
The earth beneath her trembled. A geyser shot up several horse lengths in front of her, and then a second. The tremble turned to a quake strong enough to knock several horsemen off their mounts.
The ground split, collapsing into the churning sea beneath it. The crack spread and widened. The earth under the men and horses collapsed, and the ocean swallowed them.
But the sea did not stop there. It reared up against the earth, smashing through and racing away from her down the fault line. The channel it left in its wake churned with power and widened itself until it was the width of a river.
“I won’t be letting you go anytime soon,” Henli said in a horrified whisper.
Hills fell, and the grasslands along the fault disappeared for as far as she could see.
The fault behind her began to collapse in on itself as well, leaving her and the noble on a tiny island in the center of the channel.
Sela rose. She laughed gleefully, not expecting this gift from the sea or to feel its power in the middle of the Inlands.
“I hope you have a second key,” she said.
“What does it matter?” Henli replied. “You are still unable to go far from me without hurting your guardian.”
“Do you have to be alive?”
He glared at her.
“The ocean can drown you and carry you with me as far as I need to take you.” As she spoke, a wave rose up to the height of the noble and took his shape, mirroring him and his movements.
Sela laughed again. The sea was playing with him, harmless until she decided otherwise, though the noble did not know that.
“There is no other key,” he answered fast. “I entrusted it to Keni.”
She groaned in frustration. “There is no chance Lord Qinlin left him alive. You had better hope the key is with his body and they haven’t burned it yet.”
The noble’s attention was elsewhere. The hills to the south were teeming with warriors.
“Three,” he breathed in awe. “Three kingdoms.”
Sela’s breath caught as well. The Masun, Iliun, and Biun armies stretched out beyond the hills, converging uneasily in one place, with the single intent of capturing her.
“Why are they not fighting amongst themselves?” she asked, frowning.
“Perhaps because they know it will take all of them to defeat you. Or perhaps they will wait for another army to best you then attack the winner.”
She tested her strength. The ocean continued to break the fault between islands. “I need to find Tieran,” she said, unable to help the panic within her breast.
“I suggest you fight the kingdoms off. And the one behind us.”
She turned, surprised to see the hooded forms on the hills to the south.
“They bear no banner,” Henli observed.
Sela’s mind was elsewhere, on the Sorcerer who had once tried to kidnap her. The man on his ship had worn a similar cloak and hood to hide his face. Had he been lying about not being able to use his power outside his palace? Had he sent his army to kidnap her as well?
Her bond to Tieran remained. If her guardian had been captured, he was at least alive.
“Strategy is not my strength, but I would advise attending to those attacking first,” Henli said.
She faced the three armies. All of them had begun their charges over the hills, racing one another to reach her before the others did.
“What is your strength, if not strategy or swords?” she snapped, irritated by her worthless companion.
“Gold. My family is richer than the king.”
“Gold will not help you survive this war!”
Had the Inlands ever hosted this many wealthy men, armies, and nobility?
“I won’t drown you. Let go of me,” she said.
Henli did so reluctantly, his gaze on the attackers barreling towards them. “Hurry, mage.”
Sela lifted both of her arms, and the sea rose up on either side of her. Towering waves stretched towards the sky while cool magic surged inside her, rendering her giddy with power. Water sprayed her, and she licked her lips, loving its complex flavor.
She built the tidal wave even higher, urging the ocean to become as wide as it was tall. The sea thundered, widening the fault as it shoved the islands apart. When the white crests atop the wave were too far overhead for her to see, she drew a breath and unleashed the tidal wave upon the attackers.
The ocean smashed to the ground and roared forward, as deep as a river and as wide as several hills. It swept away her attackers, swallowing them and spitting them out far enough away they were no longer threats. The water reached the top of the hills, upon which a second wave of attackers waited. Rather than risk drowning, they unleashed arrows in her direction.
Henli cowered behind her.
Waves leapt from the tidal wave to drag the arrows beneath the surface long before they could reach her.
Aware of the army at her back, Sela placed a wall of water behind them. She lowered her arms and called the ocean back to her from the hills. It raced eagerly to her and slid into the depths of the fault.
Not one horse, soldier or weapon remained where a hundred men had charged her. She smiled, happy to have her ocean once more after being trapped in the Inlands.
“You murdered them all,” Henli said in awe.
“I didn’t murder any of them,” she corrected. “I moved them far away.”
He gave her an odd look.
“I am no one’s weapon. I do not kill,” she said firmly. “But I will defend myself and my guardian.”
Not one warrior in the three armies left his place atop the hills.
“You always had your mother’s temper.” The shout pierced the wall behind her.
Sela whirled, heart leaping in her chest. She dropped the wall.
A party of five from the fourth army had reached the bank. The man leading them lowered his hood.
A wave lifted her and Henli across the fault before she fully registered who stood in front of her.
“Father!” she exclaimed when she reached dry land. Sela ran to him and threw her arms around him. She had not known how much she missed his familiar scent and warm hug before this moment. His rough beard scraped her forehead.
“My beautiful sea star,” he murmured into her hair.
“How did you travel so quickly?”
“I left the Seat of Vurdu several sennights ago, against my brother’s wishes. When Karav’s messages ceased, I became concerned,” he answered. “I’ve been searching the Inlands for you. I received an unnatural message yesterday from … a ghost. He alerted me to your whereabouts. I traveled here directly.”
She silently thanked the Sorcerer for upholding his end of their trade.
“I’ve come to take you home, Sela,” her father said.
She lifted her head from his chest, troubled. “Father, I will not fight a war for anyone. Not even my uncle.”
His smile remained, along with the warmth in his eyes. “We will talk, my sea star. But first.” He turned and beckoned one of the hooded men forward. “I found your guardian left for dead.”
She twisted to glare at Henli, whose life she had spared.
Tieran lowered his hood and stepped forward. Her heart somersaulted within her breast, and heat pushed at the cool magic in her blood. She could not look away from him.
“Sela,” he said coolly without coming closer.
Recalling the strange distance he had placed between them, her smile faded. “Tieran,” she greeted him.
He still wore the collar.
“Does this man need killed?” her father asked, lifting his chin towards Henli.
“Not yet,” she answered. “He has bound me by some ancient spell. If I leave his side, Tieran suffers.”
“Where is the key?” Tieran asked, glaring at the noble.
“Past your home to the south,” she answered.
He started forward, towards the churning ocean channel running between the split islands.
“Tieran,” she called, alarmed. “You are wounded. I can heal you before you challenge the three armies standing between you and the key!”
“I’ll manage,” he replied in a clipped tone.
She watched, astonished, as the ocean lifted him up and over the channel, leaving him safely on the other side. Did it understand her concern for him? Or was the water mage blood in his line strong enough for him to command it? Because the thought to help him had not come from her.
“Your guardian is not to be trifled with,” her father said.
Tieran drew his sword and twirled the hilt around his hand. The jewel embedded in the hilt glowed even brighter than before. She did not want to look away from his tall, muscular form. Aware of her father studying her, she turned away finally.
“Come,” he s
aid. “We will establish our camp here, beside the water.”
She nodded and walked with him. Already, his men were beginning to lay out the beams and canvas needed to set up their resting place. Sela gave a sidelong glance at her father, troubled.
Would he command her to wed her cousin, now that he had found her?
How could she hurt him by refusing? She loved the man who had always doted on her, who had not pushed her off on a nursemaid and instead, raised her with Karav’s help, against the traditions of those born into the royal court. She was not raised with the other children of royal blood but in and near her father’s palace, beneath his gentle watch.
Anything he asked her to do, she would.
She glanced over her shoulder towards Tieran.
Almost anything, she conceded. Tieran had put distance between them for a reason she did not understand. Was it better to accept her cousin’s hand in marriage or to spend her life wondering why Tieran had changed so suddenly?
She knew the answer already. After the kiss she shared with Tieran, she would permit no other man to touch her.
She sat beside her father as the tents were erected, listening to him discuss the latest news and chaos at court. His brother was moving to claim the throne of the High King, while her cousin had been injured in a skirmish with the Kingdom of Masu, which also pursued the High King’s throne. Her father, ever the peacemaker, was attempting to negotiate with all the kingdoms to avoid war.
As she listened, she could not help smiling. She had had three of the best men in the realm in her life, and she had never felt as grateful for all of them before her adventures in the Inlands.
“I had planned for you to help me keep the peace,” he finished, eyes shifting from the tents to her.
“Is peace even possible?” she asked, distraught.
“With the right kind of encouragement, I believe so.”
“Such as a water mage who can wipe out a kingdom,” she murmured.
“Or close down trade routes until a kingdom capitulates.”
She twisted her hands in her lap. “Father, what about what I want for my life?” she ventured. “I was raised to be a weapon, but my heart lies elsewhere. I do not wish to kill anyone.”
